The calendar provided Avaí with a ‘gift’ in this final stretch of Brasileirão in the fight against relegation. Thanks to the participation of Grêmio in the semifinals of the Copa Libertadores of America, the team from Santa Catarina will face this Sunday, October 29, an opponent filled with reserve athletes. The clash is part of the schedule of the thirty-first round of the Brazilian Championship in its 2017 season and begins scheduled for 19h (Brasília time) at the Ressacada stadium in Florianópolis.

Avaí’s recent performance

Avaí started the day of number 31 outside the relegation zone. With 34 points (eight wins, 10 draws and 12 losses), he was in the sixteenth place. When you step on the lawn, however, you may be again in the sticking region, since all your major rivals have early commitment.
More troubling than this situation, which may be only temporary, are the bad results that the team has recently achieved in their fields. In the last four matches in the Ressacada, only two points of the 12 played.
There is no reason to point to this weak performance other than the very low offensive production. With 20 goals, Avaí has ​​the worst attack of the Brasileirão. It is surpassed in this question even by the teams in the relegation zone.
The problem is even greater at home. Less than half of these attempts (nine) were scored in the Ressacada. Therefore, despite having scored in 11 out of 15 matches in Florianópolis, Avaí has ​​the fourth worst home performance of the tournament. It was eight draws and only three losses.
With insufficient financial resources to set up a technically richer team, the board follows the plan outlined earlier in the season. Of the teams that have passed practically all the Brasileirão in the bottom of the table of the classification, Avaí is the unique one that did not change technician.
Convinced of his work, Claudinei Oliveira also avoids changes in large numbers from one game to another. Aiming to face Grêmio, he should not even make changes to the team that defeated Ponte Preta, 2-1 in Campinas, the previous day.

The current form of Grêmio

For the Rio Grande do Sul, the Brazilian Championship was over. Lazyly, Grêmio only complies with the table of the competition and after being vice-leader in the first round, presents a campaign that would leave him near the relegation zone if only the results of the second round were considered.
The number one priority of the club is the Copa Libertadores Cup. On Wednesday, October 25, in Guyaquil, Ecuador, they thrashed Barcelona 3-0 and came close to securing their place in the final for the fifth time in the history of the tournament.
Despite the wide advantage, coach Renato Gauchos has previously shown that he does not like to take risks. This means that it will once again put a reserve team in the field. He had already done this the previous day, when he was defeated, at home, by Palmeiras, by 3 to 1.
At that time, however, he used the game as a test platform for the game against Barcelona and put on acting athletes like midfielder Luan and Michel, who were in the process of improving their physical condition after recovering from injury. This time, neither should they be related to act.
With 50 points (15 wins, 5 draws and 10 losses), Grêmio has enough ‘fat’ to ‘discard’ a round of the Brasileirão and still continue in the fight to obtain through the tournament a direct place in the group stage of the Libertadores 2018 It is, of course, a ‘B plan’ for the qualifying event not to be achieved with the 2017 edition of the continental tournament.

History of the bouts between Avaí and Grêmio
First realized in the Brasileirão of 1974, the duel Avaí x Grêmio had 12 occurrences with eight gaucho victories, three catarinenses successes and only a tie. In the first round of the 2017 season in Porto Alegre, Avaí won 2-0.